Re: Mate you're not alone in thinking the androl arc was insanely stupid. - Edit 1
Before modification by muppet at 31/01/2013 04:47:45 PM
I get the sense that the people who did like that arc were ones who are either new(er) to the series, or haven't appreciated the depth at which RJ wrote the series. That is to say, only read the story for the sake of learning the story, and not appreciating the incredible richness of it. That's why I can't stand people who have waved off all of sanderson's mistakes as if they're not that big a deal. There are a lot of people who actually think sanderson is a superior writer to RJ!
Well, in some ways yes, in some ways no. Sanderson's pacing is better. Even though he gave way too much screen-time to his own personal avatar in the story, Androl-the-cross-universe-reincarnation-of-Kelsier, he kept things moving in a way that RJ just didn't or couldn't, and that I can appreciate, especially with only 3 volumes left to go in the series. He got a much higher density of story telling done (although the Civil War re-enactment disguised as an apocalyptic Trolloc battle I could have done without) than RJ usually did post Great Hunt.
BUT, a lot of it reads like fan fiction, or like Douglas Adams writing fantasy without most of the humor included. It's just not the same.
RJ was going for a much more solemn, Tolkien-esque vibe that Sanderson either could not or did not want to reproduce.